H.B.M.D. for horn, trombone, and strings (2004)

In the summer of 2004, I was fortunate to be accepted to the Composers Conference at Wellesley College. Mario Davidovsky, the main composer entity during those two weeks, was celebrating his 70th birthday that year. All of the composer fellows decided, quite at the last minute, to each write a variation on “Happy Birthday” and surprise Mario with performances of the variations, conducted by the composers, after the ?nal concert. The dedication refers to a rather tasteless joke that Mario told during one of our tasteless joke sessions.